Many people believe that laws exist in society in order to keep its citizens safe. When a person commits a crime, they should be penalized accordingly. However, there are some that are questioning if punishment is the appropriate way to keep people safe. After all, if the punishment cripples a person’s ability to return to being a productive citizen, is it really the best option?

According to the Los Angeles Times, community reinvestment is the key to reducing crime and violence. Instead of locking up the people who break the law, they are assigned projects or summer jobs to improve their community.

“Indeed, there is now sufficient evidence to support an entirely new model for countering violence — one driven by investment,” said Professor Patrick Sharkley, the writer of the article Community investment, not punishment, is key to reducing violence.

Sacramento County Sheriff Service Center

In Sacramento, organizations such as the California Endowment encourage restorative actions rather than punishment. One reason to choose reinvestment is the much lower cost. According to the New York Times, the average cost of locking up one inmate annually is $168,000, The prison population of California in 2015 was 112,300 people. According to the Orange County Register, California could save half a billion dollars by introducing new rehabilitation programs for inmates and ex-convicts.

In the Sacramento City Unified School District, there are some educators who hold similar views. Often, the teachers and school administrators have to strike the balance between restorative programs and punishment.

“I definitely think that the balance should tip in the favor of, restorative, reinvestment, supportive, as opposed to punishment,” said David Van Natten, Principal of John F. Kennedy High School. “Particularly in the context of school, sometimes a consequence is appropriate but that it’s a much better learning experience and it’s more likely result in long-term change if there is a restorative component.”

The American prison system has become one of the largest in the world. It is up to the people to decide what happens next.

People can be just like tomatoes. Gardeners know that if tomatoes are planted in the same soil over and over again, they will not grow. The soil lacks nutrients, and minerals, and is unable to sustain life. Even if the little plant grows, it only gets so big before it withers away. Would anyone grow if they were to be “planted” on the same “soil” over and over again?

According to reports by the Prison Policy Initiative, a criminal justice organization, inmates made about $19,185 per year before they went to prison and people who make little money have a much greater chance to be incarcerated than those who are considered higher-earners. Almost 2 million children have parents that are incarcerated, and about half of those kids are 9 or younger. Many people wonder how families with one parents missing from the household provide a nurturing environment for their children. Has there been any change in the “system” in the last few years to address this? Will there be any changes in the next couple of years?

To some students that are about to enter the working class, they do not at all see themselves as potential inmates.

“My plan after high school is to go to college. No, I don’t see myself in prison because I don’t intend to do bad things,” says Allicia Lee, a John F. Kennedy senior who’s graduating in June of this year. Prison is not an option to some because they were raised in an environment that who focuses are learning. Many high school graduates intend to continue on the path of educations in college, not crime.

Another senior that will be graduating this June believe that he will not go to prison. However, he does see himself in prison when thinking about it.

“I would sometimes imagine myself in prison when coming across the subject of prison,” says Andy Zhao of John F. Kennedy high school. To him prison is like a shadow lurking from the behind, waiting for the right opportunity.

To others, however, it can be seen as the ground they live on. They live in low-income neighborhoods, which lacks in quality educational options, making the youth who live there all the more susceptible to turn to crime. Their parents are prison inmates, making life much harder without a “model” to follow.

People can survive in these conditions, but will the children ever have any hope to prosper?

They Call Us Monster is a movie focusing on the youth who are incarcerated in our country. Free tickets for a showing in Sacramento on March 3 can be found here.

With last Saturday’s Multicultural Education Conference came talks about a variety of cultural and ethnic concerns, with many speakers focusing on the academic careers of minorities in the US, and the challenges they face. One such speaker, psychologist Melissa Holland, explained to her audience at the University of California, Sacramento audience the “achievement gap” between minority and non-minority students across the country, as well as the notorious “school to prison pipeline.”

Citing a disparity of dropout rates between, black, Hispanic, and white high school students, Holland sought to explain the causes of such imbalances. She also gave some solutions put together by her own students, who designed teacher curriculums for their thesis projects.

A major source of inequality in the classroom she identified was the use of “exclusionary discipline,” which is a form of discipline that removes a student from the classroom. Detention, suspension, and expulsion are all punishments that Holland views as counterproductive, because they take away that student’s opportunity to learn.

Her students outlined a series of sessions as part of a “group curriculum.” These sessions include a class just for teachers to take the time to reflect on their own cultural awareness and biases, as well as group activities for students and instructors to better understand each other and their goals.

In another session, students would be asked to take the free VIA Strength Assessment to determine their strengths and how to use them to their advantage in class.

In addition, a common theme among discussions on at-risk youth is the need to have a caring adult figure, which Holland echoed in her discussion.

“It doesn’t have to be a parent, or a guardian,” she explained. “It can be a counselor. It can be a school psychologist. It can be someone who that child has semi-regular contact with who is a caring, consistent adult, and we can provide that for them.”

Another major topic addressed was the harm being done to by what is called punitive justice. This form of justice focuses on three issues: what law or rule was broken, who broke it, and what their punishment should be. According to Holland, this approach is all wrong. Instead, she hopes to make the switch to what is called restorative justice, which instead “maximizes student involvement” in “repairing the damage that has been done.”

Instead of conventional discipline, restorative discipline seeks to identify what harm was done and to who, what the needs of are of the people or things involved, and who is responsible to make that those needs are met and justice is restored.

If a student has been suspended or expelled, “reintegration” is the key to rebuilding relationships in the classroom, according to Holland. She goes on to cite Oakland School District as an example of restorative justice in action.

If other districts were to follow Oakland’s model, Holland, her graduate students, and many others in the field believe that it would help minority high school students make it to graduation day, which would in turn help their communities.